Lower-house Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty said a special committee would convene to consider legislation on terminating pregnancy.
"Women's rights must be fought for consistently and never given up," he wrote on X.
'Happy medium'
Education Minister Barbara Nowacka said there would be "a breakthrough."
Speaking to broadcaster TVN24, she declined to give details, but said the ruling coalition had found a "happy medium."
The solution would not be perfect, she said, but would be "a step in the right direction."
Asked whether the rural-based Polish People's Party (PSL), a junior coalition partner, would accept it, she said the parties had managed to sit back down at the table.
The committee will examine two bills. One, from the Left and Civic Coalition (KO), would partially decriminalise abortion with the woman's consent and decriminalise helping with a self-administered abortion.
The other, from the centre-right Third Way, would restore the right to abortion in cases of severe foetal defect, reversing the effect of a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling.
A third KO and Left bill, which would allow abortion on request up to 12 weeks, is also pending before the committee but has not been worked on since spring 2024.
Easing abortion rules was a campaign pledge of the KO and the Left in the 2023 election, but nothing has passed. After a vote on decriminalisation fell short in mid-2024, Prime Minister Donald Tusk acknowledged the coalition lacked a majority to loosen the rules.
Public opinion is evenly split. A June IBRiS poll found 44.7 percent of respondents wanted parliament to keep working on liberalisation and 44.4 percent opposed, with 10.9 percent undecided.
Abortion is currently legal in Poland only when a pregnancy threatens the woman's life or health, or, up to 12 weeks, when it results from a criminal act.
The ground of severe foetal impairment has been unavailable since January 2021, when the Constitutional Tribunal struck it down, triggering nationwide protests.
(jh/gs)
Source: PAP